KT Lowe

KT Lowe

Writers, musicians, scientists: accomplishments of Black women throughout history

Writers, musicians, scientists: accomplishments of Black women throughout history

, , Library Resources, Research
In the arts, sciences, humanities and popular culture, Black women have helped to shape our society in ways large and small. You can research them in databases like African-American History Online, Black Women Writers, or Black Thought and Culture.  In this blog, we highlight three of these extraordinary women and their tremendous contributions to American society, history and culture. Sister Rosetta Tharpe The guitar stings its notes one after the next, amplified by gigantic speakers.  Up front, in a sleeveless cotton dress, a woman stands in front of a large silver microphone, her hair pulled up away from her face.  She is Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and according to a number of music historians, she invented or promoted many of the … Continued
Visual Artists and HIV

Visual Artists and HIV

, , , Research, Uncategorized
Since 1989, art galleries and museums have taken note of the toll that HIV has taken on artists and their communities.  While a number of HIV+ artists are well known, such as photographers Robert Mapplethorpe and Herb Ritts and painter Keith Haring, the disease still affects the art world today.  Profiled below are three artists whose work is making a significant impact in the art world today. Photographer John Dugdale produces fragile, beautiful cyanotypes and calotypes that often feature LGBTQ themes (even the flowers – really!).Born in 1960, Dugdale studied photography at New York’s School of the Visual Arts.  He was diagnosed with HIV in 1982 and lived with the disease mostly in check until 1993, when he suffered two … Continued
NewsLitCamp: Highlights 2021

NewsLitCamp: Highlights 2021

, , , , Programs
The NewsLitCamp, hosted by the News Literacy Project, is an outreach program dedicated to providing educators with the latest tools and information that they need to equip their students in the fight against fake news.  This year, 15 reporters and staff members from CNN joined in, offering exclusive insight into the back door of the nation’s top rated cable news network. A useful delineation of terms was presented by John Silva, who directs education initiatives at the News Literacy Project.  “Fake news,” once a distinct term referring to completely fabricated information formatted like a news story, has been overused to the point of uselessness.  It has also taken on the tone of a slur used in disagreements of points of … Continued
American protest music: a brief history

American protest music: a brief history

, , , Research
While Americans have always performed music, serious study of American musical forms only begins in the 20th century.  John Lomax, beginning as a graduate student at Harvard, was among the very first to take interest in traditional American music, and he began his work with “cowboy” songs, which detailed the lives of what he felt were “authentic” Americans and their experiences.  Although his viewpoint could comfortably be considered naïve today, his work, along with that of anthropologist Franz Boaz and, slightly later, poet Carl Sandburg, became the foundation for American folk music studies.  It is from folk music that the protest music movement stems.  The very first protest singer/songwriter was a Swedish immigrant, born Joel Hagglund in 1879.  After his … Continued
Phil Ochs and the legacy of singing journalism

Phil Ochs and the legacy of singing journalism

, , , Research
“In the heat of the summer/when the pavements were burning/the soul of a city was ravaged in the night/after the city sun was sinkin’.”                   – “In the Heat of the Summer” After the death of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, the city of Minneapolis erupted in protest, with police forces beating back protestors with tear gas and rubber bullets.  Related protests occurred in 140 other US cities, including Los Angeles, Detroit, Atlanta, New York and Las Vegas, resulting in violence, property damage and the deaths of at least four protestors.  The protests of summer 2020 eerily resembled the civil rights riots which swept much of the country during the mid-1960s.  Documentation of those riots was not left entirely … Continued